17 July 2006

Back to the Pressure Cooker

Home from a week's vacation and I think it didn't take. I'm not relaxed. Used to work in a cube farm as an employee of a direct lender(bank) with a tremendous amount of pressure. I still work with pressure, but it is mostly self-applied. Some of the pressure is derived from the inflexible terms and processes of the multiple banks I work with now.

If I can get a potential homeowner qualified to borrow half a million to a million dollars when that person could not get qualified elsewhere, then I feel as though I've achieved something. We're not making diamonds out of coal, but we're still turning one bank's junk into another bank's treasure.The primary reason I returned unrelaxed is that this was partially a "working vacation". OMGWTFBBQ? You can't run a business from Disneyland. There's nowhere to make a quiet phone call w/o screaming people, music, or ride noises in the background.

When the borrower in a mortgage refinance delays the process at nearly every stage after we have begun the process, I'm told that I should increase my fees. I've already anticipated some delays in my calculations and the ink on the fee agreement is dry. It just wouldn't be right. How could I expect referrals from this client?

Refi clients typically won't lose their homes by delaying. The difference is this : A home buyer has a deadline. The deposit keeps things moving forward. I have no interest in delaying either transaction.

Which reminds me : What's the difference between a developer and a conservationist? A developer wants to build a home in the woods. A conservationist already owns one.